Can SOE scan XUnleashed on my Computer : EverQuest 2 General Discussions

Is it possible for SOE to find out if i am using XUnleased on my Computer.

I`m sure they could, but this would violate data privacy law in my opinion, so they mustn`t. But this isn`t any guarantee that they doesn`t do it! If you mind having trouble with your account or loosing it don`t use xunleashed.You alone take all responsibility for your actions.

As with ShowEQ in EQ1, there's no legal/legitimate way for them to technically detect such an application running.

People that get banned are just being too obvious in reacting to the extra information. Like in EQ1, people using OOC and advertising they were a ShowEQ group (meaning, join them, 'cause they're going to see the rare spawn first, anyway).

Whats with people reporting you running around making exactly the same movements when stuck and running straight from node to node? The GMs will react on this for sure, won`t they?

That is totally possible but unless you were harvesting in a very small area the chances are very unlikely. I have asked for some human like stuff from Watcher for his next version of the Harvester.

OH and FYI if you don't know already give Watcher's latest Harvester script (currently in beta) a try the run/turning and over all look of this script is a TON smoother and it has a much better ability to get unstuck IMO.

Loraik

To put it simply, if you run a bot, you take a chance of getting caught. If you didn't already know that you should not run a bot. What I would assume you are really asking is what are my odds... this depends on you and on the appearance of the bot (which is partly dependent on you).

To expand on that, how 'lifelike' is the bot, does it look and act like a bot? Does it move stiffly or smoothly? Some stiffness can be attributed to a person with a laggy computer but too much or too often and it begins to attract attention. If the bot spends 2 hours in a room trying to get out (sorry loraik) that looks pretty botlike, if a bot always goes to point x, stops, turns and points directly at it's next location, goes there, stops harvest turns and points exactly... this describes what a bot looks like and this is what I TRY to prevent when I write. It's all tradeoffs, speed and accuracy are often very direct tradeoffs. Sometimes when I'm playing with navigation routines my bot will circle the target... very botlike movement (bad bad bad bot!) One thing you can do to prevent this is to set your graphics to Extreme performance... what do you care, you're not playing right? but the increase in performance can help a lot in making the navigation routines do what they are supposed to. Calibrating the bot to get MinPress right helps too. I turn that off cause I stop and start mine so often while testing but if I were a standard user I would start bot for x hours so ... who cares if it spends the first minute calibrating?

What can you do to prevent getting caught? There is no 100% but you can come VERY close. Best protection is be AT THE KEYBOARD, kinda psuedo botting cause the bot is running but you can always press a key here and there to 'help out' and you see what's going on and can chat etc.. while botting. This is why the chat keys are setup the way they are, you can chat while botting with almost no inconvenience and after a while with almost no slow down of the bot. You'll learn to start your 'input' as the bot does it's first harvest of a node, you now have 6 seconds (the time it takes to harvest a node) plus 6 seconds (the bot queues up one harvest) that's 12 seconds to type in your message and hit enter. If you do you have not slowed the bot AT ALL.

Beginning to get the idea? You can turn on audible monitoring (I use 75% volume cause I just added the raise to 100 volume when in trouble) and watch a movie eihter very close by or even on the computer that is running the bot. At first the "Harvested a feyeeron cluster" ... is irritating but after a while you get used to it and tune it out... BUT when it stops you wonder why, and when the bot starts saying "I'm stuck"...."I"m very stuck" you will notice it.

Last night I went to bed on the couch as the bot harvested and woke up to "xxxxx tells you, Hey I was harvesting that node you know!" I got up, replied with sorry and "I get in such a daze when I'm harvesting", he thanked me, I cleared out my inventory (all while the bot is running full speed) and went back to bed.

How chancy do you want to get? Play it safe? Sit at the keyboard... trust the bot... let it run while your gone. Your choice.

Oh, and let me add... THINK about your waypoint layout, get HBMakePath and make a nice big 100point path, now watch the bot, experiment with different styles of pathing, don't hesitate to overlap your waypoints, the bot will run more efficiently that way. Think of a waypoint as a dot on the map and range as how long your string is... now tie one end of your string to a nail at the point and walk in a big circle, that is your waypoint. If your Range is 50 then your circle will measure 100 from edge to edge,that is a very large area. Not a problem, the bot generally 'sees' 100 to 150 radius around itself and making your range smaller does NOT speed up it's updates cause it has to accept or reject every object in it's viewing area anyway. Ok so you have a 100 edge to edge circle, as the bot approaches the edge of your 50 range it will begin to search for nodes (internally) as it's running, now it's at 40 range or in a very populated area maybe 30, the bot will now start harvesting nodes closest to where you where when the update started (possibly behind you). Not especially good, let's make our next waypoint smarter, let's have it overlap this one by range amount, now when the bot finishes harvesting it's probably standing IN the next waypoint's range and so updates and starts harvesting, but half of that waypoint has already been harvsted so the amount of running around is decreased.

Well, that may or may not have made sense to you but experiment, this is not PlugNPray windows, this is ThinkNOptimize. That's what you have a brain for right?

Since this post isn't QUITE long enough yet *sigh*, in answer to the original question... i HOPE SOE scans my computer and bans me based on that data, I could really use the cash from the law Suit... never liked working anyway.

You could have gotten this responce from buying "Watcher's guide to botting for Idiots" at Amazon.com...

Loraik

Well that was helpful, too bad i dun have any bots tho lol

There is just one tiny problem with the lawsuit thing

If they put in their Terms of Use and EULA that you give them the right to scan certain aspects of your computer then they can. You have the right to hit decline but what ever you agree to they can do.

WoW has something called the Warden program that the players give them the right to use. This program from my understanding scans winwo title bars and converts them to an MD5 hash. They compare the scan hash to a list of hashs they have complied.

If and only if do they scan your system without getting permission via Terms of Use and/or EULA can you sue them. Also, you will need proof that they scanned your system and proof you did you not accept if they did add it to their EULA and ToU document.

Just remember that they can do what ever you give them permission to do or you do not play their game.

By the EULA, they cannot scan your computer for those processes UNLESS you are participating in a beta or maybe test, which would fall under a separate agreement. However, they do have toolsets they can use to help determine whether someone is using a bot based on the info normally sent to their servers, but they have to suspect botting before they will activate those on your characters.

In other words, bot unattended at your own risk.

Frankly, they couldnt detect showEQ in eq1 because it was entirely passive and ran on a second PC , it didnt reside on the client PC, did not ineteract with the client PC in anyway, and did not hook any client funtions in anyway.

Comparing Xunleashed to Showeq is laughable and not applicable.

Xunleashed DOES hook client functions, runs on the client PC and will be detected if scanned.
Read you EULA

-Cheers

Just to clear something up, the legality of it all means absolutely nothing. SOE reserve the right to protect their data from being modified.
But the fact is, they don't. There are probably many reasons. They haven't done it in EQ1 in over 5 years and neither have they done it in any of their other station MMOs.
They [b]will not[/b] ever scan your computer for active hacks/bots/etc. Simple as that.

[quote="Tault_nazeroth"]Just to clear something up, the legality of it all means absolutely nothing. SOE reserve the right to protect their data from being modified.
But the fact is, they don't. There are probably many reasons. They haven't done it in EQ1 in over 5 years and neither have they done it in any of their other station MMOs.
They [b]will not[/b] ever scan your computer for active hacks/bots/etc. Simple as that.[/quote]

One being they know that people who use these will leave, cancelling multiple accounts

I think the only time they would take action is if your actions were causing distress for the rest of the playerbase.

I dont think SOE is going to cost itself $30-40 a month because you are making pies automated (unless by the billions)

*** If they put in their Terms of Use and EULA that you give them the right to scan certain aspects of your computer then they can. You have the right to hit decline but what ever you agree to they can do. ***

Very iffy -- there are both criminal and civil sides to the matter. You can't, for example, sign a contract agreeing to be a slave, as slavery is illegal. Legal issues around newer laws like the Internet Privacy Act of 1995 make this very dangerous territory for a company to run hidden processes on people's machine, esp. when the person running the application might not be the sole owner of the materials on the computer.

*** Frankly, they couldnt detect showEQ in eq1 because it was entirely passive and ran on a second PC , it didnt reside on the client PC, did not ineteract with the client PC in anyway, and did not hook any client funtions in anyway. ***

Actually, you CAN detect packet sniffing -- it's just network-invasive to do so. But not impossible from a technical standpoint. Is it worth the criminal and civil exposure, just to catch an activity that's not terribly hard to uncover more conventionally?

*** WoW has something called the Warden program that the players give them the right to use. This program from my understanding scans winwo title bars and converts them to an MD5 hash. They compare the scan hash to a list of hashs they have complied. ***

It's not like things like Sony's CD rootkit, or WoW's Warden aren't detectable -- they are (and dissectible! And while, for the moment, Warden only compares hashes of process names to a "known bad" list, tomorrow they might start sending the names of all processes. And from there, it's very downhill.

Bottom line: if you're not an idiot about your botting, you should be fine. If you're being an idiot, you _might_ get caught (or might not, like ppl who macro craft 24x7 for months on end).